The New Kids

These were rowdy and ill-behaved children, and we didn’t belong here, Sissy and I decided. I was holding my breath and clutching an old greeting card for protection. Sissy was holding my hand. The daycare had low ceilings and chipped paint and windows propped wide to let the buzzing flies in. The room smelled like burnt soup and urine.
Not all the kids were bad. Some were shy like me. There was the quiet boy who sucked his thumb and the quiet girl who chewed her hair. We sat in a row nibbling our saltines like mice. Sissy told the teenaged girl she didn’t need a snack. Instead she crawled around on the linoleum looking for insects to coax into her hand. “I found a ladybug for you,” she said and dropped a spotted jewel in my palm. The boy and the girl leaned in from either side and hummed with delight until the red shell split in half and it flew away home. I showed them the names of all the friends I had left behind and the words of goodbye my kindergarten teacher Mrs. Jarvis had written. “It’s hard being the new kids,” the teenaged girl said, “but you’ll make friends real fast.”
I lost the card. I didn’t cry too much because Sissy was sad enough for both of us. Mama and Daddy were on their way and something would be wrong with the new house and we’d be on the move again. Why couldn’t we be the old kids for once, sitting smug at our desks while the new kids squirmed? When we left, the boy and the girl came to say goodbye. The boy sucked his thumb. The girl took a chunk of hair from her mouth. “I hope you find your friends,” she said.